Hi Sharon,   Welcome to HealthCentral. For your specific question about Entocorts effects on bones and live you should call your pharmacist to ask this question, they'll be able to give you the relevant information.   I have UC and have taken varying doses of Asacol, a 5-ASA drug, for more than 10 years now. I have regular blood tests to make sure my liver and kidney function is well and good and take a Calcium supplement 2x/day, which also helps with diarrhea.   I'm not a doctor, but my personal experience and the experiences I've heard from other IBDers regarding medication for colitis is that many of us do take these meds for long periods of time. But usually, the higher doses, like the 12mgs. 4x/day is to get an acute flare up under control. Once the flare up is controlled it is usually possible for people to slowly taper down their dosage.   My personal experience with Asacol is this: I took 9 pills/day for about 2 years to get my first severe flare-up udner control. Since then I've been able to taper down to 6 pills/day for a few years, and am now able to keep my symptoms controlled with 4 pills/day and with some huge diet and stress reduction changes I've made to my life.   You may want to read some of my Shareposts on this site which discuss how I've used diet changes to help with my colitis symptoms.   I hope this has been helpful. It does get better.   Cheers, Elizabeth